White and his colleagues have begun experimenting with a mini version of the warp drive in their laboratory. They set up what they call the White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer at the Johnson Space Center, essentially creating a laser interferometer that instigates micro versions of space-time warps.
He called the project a "humble experiment" compared to what would be needed for a real warp drive, but said it represents a promising first step.
And other scientists stressed that even outlandish-sounding ideas, such as the warp drive, need to be considered if humanity is serious about traveling to other stars. Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! Plus, Alcubierre himself has endorsed the new model, which is like having Albert Einstein show up to your introductory physics class.
Type keyword s to search. Today's Top Stories. A new paper proposes a fully physically realized model for warp drive. This builds on an existing model that requires negative energy—an impossibility. The new model is exciting, but warp speed is still probably decades or centuries away.
To better understand the term "warp drive," some may be familiar with the 60s Sci-Fi show "Star Trek," where the crew needed to go somewhere fast, Captain Kirk gave his famous command Mr, Sulu, Execute". The ship was pushed swiftly to another distant destination. Physics has scoffed at the idea of a real warp drive because it suggests travel faster than light.
However, as the drive's name suggests, such an engine did not push the spacecraft faster than the speed of light; instead, it merely warped space-time in a way that allowed for using a shortcut. But, the new study has a workaround. I am now a theoretical physicist and study nanotechnology, but I am still fascinated by the ways humanity could one day travel in space.
Warp drives are theoretically possible if still far-fetched technology. Two recent papers made headlines in March when researchers claimed to have overcome one of the many challenges that stand between the theory of warp drives and reality.
But how do these theoretical warp drives really work? And will humans be making the jump to warp speed anytime soon? General Relativity states that space and time are fused and that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.
General relativity also describes how mass and energy warp spacetime — hefty objects like stars and black holes curve spacetime around them. Early science fiction writers John Campbell and Asimov saw this warping as a way to skirt the speed limit.
What if a starship could compress space in front of it while expanding spacetime behind it? In , Miguel Alcubierre, a Mexican theoretical physicist, showed that compressing spacetime in front of the spaceship while expanding it behind was mathematically possible within the laws of General Relativity. So, what does that mean?
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